Nightmare
by RougeAngleOfSatin
Summary: Every time he sleeps, Hashirama kills him. Hashirama/Madara. Trigger warnings inside.


Madara doesn't like to sleep. He's never slept well; his mind is always too restless, his body too alert. But there was relief to be found in dreams, sometimes.

(_Not anymore_.)

He stops only because he must. Food and drink are things he no longer needs, even if he still personally craves them, so he doesn't stop for them. He continues his trek through the mountains, heaving one foot in front of the other. Strange shadows begin to dance at the edges of his vision. His heart jolts every time he catches sight of one, but still he continues on. It's only when he begins to sway and stumbles into a tree that he admits defeat and looks for shelter.

The stone floor is cold and hard on his bones, yet somehow the most comfortable surface in the world when he sags against the wall. Madara shifts, feet scuffing against the mossy stone. A ruined temple for a forgotten god, no one comes here save criminals and madmen. Or ghosts, like him.

It's too soon to move out in the open – the valley they carved is too fresh, the dummy corpse he left in Tobirama's chamber of horrors still open to incisions and scrutiny. The scar on his chest still aches so much that it slows his journey considerably, though it has been of great help in keeping him awake for the past six days. So he waits, now fixing his single working eye on a moonbeam that spills through a gap onto the stone by his feet, and mutters under his breath the mechanics of every jutsu his Sharingan has ever copied to try and stave off sleep.

He gets as far as the bug-based techniques of the Aburame clan ("The kikaichū…are un…unaffected by gen_jutsu_…due to their simple nervous systems…") before he can hold off no longer and oblivion descends.

Every time he sleeps, Hashirama kills him. Sometimes it plays out true to life with a stab in the back, Hashirama's breath against his ear as the sword juts out of his chest, the Senju's words piercing his heart as the blade never could. Other times he breaks his neck, so that when Madara wakes he sits up rubbing it, still hearing the reverberationsof snapping vertebrae and his voice. Once he'd decapitated him, and the highest Madara could see was his ankles as Hashirama looked down on him and spoke.

That's what these dreams all share. _Those words_. Those cold words that made what had been theirs into Hashirama's alone:

"_No matter what happens I will protect our… no, __**my**__ village. I still believe that protecting the village is the best way to protect people, shinobi, and children…! Anyone who tries to harm it, whether they are my friends, siblings or my own children… I won't forgive them._"

They're all Hashirama ever says. Even in the dreams like this one.

Hashirama pushes Madara down flat with a hand tight around his throat. Water rushes into his ears. (More trickles down the crag but the water level never increases. It won't either. This is the height it was at when he died.) He thrashes, clawing at the hand, but Hashirama's skin remains unmarred and unyielding. His eyes hold the same hard, merciless look as the statue of a guardian deity. Hashirama closes his fingers until spots dance before Madara's eyes and he feels giddy and lightheaded with the approach of death, then the pressure slackens and spreads; Mokuton branches hold him down. Hashirama crawls over him, and in accordance with dream-logic, they are both suddenly naked.

"No matter what happens," Hashirama begins, placing his hands on Madara's knees. He prises them apart, pushing them back until Madara's thighs touch the branches curled around his chest. Madara tries to kick him, but he's pinned in place. All that results is a feeble twitch of muscles. "I will protect our…no, **my**—"

The head of his cock bumps against Madara's entrance, before forcing its way inside in one movement. Madara gives a pained hiss as something tears. His eyes sting, and not from the suddenness of the penetration.

"—village."

It continues on like that, with Hashirama fucking him and talking in that voice so disconnected from what he's doing. His words have a distant, echoing quality because of the water. The act is so different from what it had been. There's no pleasure in this pain. There's no tenderness in Hashirama's gaze, his face remains still even as hips jerk out their punishing rhythm. Even so Madara arches up against his restraints, nails digging into his palms as hard as he'd use them against Hashirama if he could.

He hates this. Hates _him_.

Hashirama's fingers glide up his chest, cool and assessing, until they find what they seek. The wound is red and angry. Blood starfishes out of it when Hashirama digs his fingers in, widening it. Madara freezes, ignoring the way his body jolts beneath his murderer's thrusts, and fixes his eyes on Hashirama's face.

Hashirama's fingers slide in and out obscenely with his movements, red and slick. Madara bites back a groan when they work their way deeper, tunnelling through flesh, and then bone, the entire hand disappearing into his chest…

His heart isn't easily taken. Hashirama slows his movements and yanks on it the way he might a stubborn weed until it tears free, spattering them both with gore.

Madara screams.

Hashirama's expression is dispassionate as he raises Madara's still-beating heart to his mouth. For a moment it seems he might bite or lick it, but all he does is press his lips against the glistening muscle in a soft kiss. Then, with a clever sleight of hand, the heart is gone.

Ice floods Madara's veins. What have you done? That doesn't belong to you."

Hashirama's smile is gentle beneath the blood as he goes against the established script for the first time. "Doesn't it?"

Madara jerks awake drenched in cold sweat and experiences a moment of panic at sensing Hashirama's chakra close by, until he remembers. He probes the scar gingerly with shaking fingers, though he knows it was just a dream.

Just a dream.

_It goes to show there's no justice in this world_, he thinks, _if_ I _am the one haunted by _you.


End file.
